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Dawn Lenore Sonntag, composition
Dawn Lenore Sonntag is a featured composer in the new Choral Repertoire by Women Composers, edited by Alan Troy Davis and Hilary Apfelstadt. Her chamber trio "Tattler Creek" was awarded Second Prize in the American Prize Charles Ives Award for chamber music composition, and her first opera, Verlorene Heimat, received Honorable Mention in the 2021 American Prize for opera, theater, dance and film composition. Her opera For Life was featured in the Operas in Place festival, a winner of Opera America's 2023 award for digital excellence. Sonntag was the Washington State Music Teachers Association Composer of the Year in 2021 and the Ohio State Music Teachers Association Distinguished Composer in 2010.
As a three-time composer-in-residence at the Visby International Centre for Composers on the island of Gotland, Sweden, Sonntag was the recipient of a Swedish government intercultural arts grant. Her interest in Norwegian language and music led to a Foreign Language Area Studies fellowship for the study of advanced Norwegian at the University of Oslo and an American Scandinavian Foundation fellowship.
Self-taught as a pianist until the age of eighteen, Sonntag played the trumpet for eleven years as a child and youth, performing with the Milwaukee Symphony Youth Orchestra. She holds graduate degrees in composition, voice, choral conducting and collaborative piano from the University of Minnesota (D.M.A.), the Ohio State University (M.M.), Antioch University McGregor School of the Arts in Tübingen, Germany (M.A.), and the Hochschule für Kirchenmusik Heidelberg (graduate artist degree) and is an accomplished church organist. She also studied composition at the European American Musical Alliance in Paris. Her composition mentors include Alex Lubet, Narcis Bonet, and Claude Baker. She has served on the faculties of the University of St. Catherine, Hiram College, Gonzaga University, and Pacific Lutheran University. She is also Director of Music and organist at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Olympia, Washington.